The Medicare trust-fund, which provides coverage to 55 million Americans, will exhaust its reserves by 2028. Similarly, the Social Security trust-fund, which provides retirement benefits to 49 million Americans, will be depleted by 2034, triggering a 21% benefit cut if…
Last year, US exports to the UK were $55 billion, 2.5% of exports; just 0.3% of US GDP. The direct effects of a slump in the UK will be hardly noticed. The indirect effects are what matters. Heading the list;…
The Friday File: Shockingly, the UK voted to exit the EU. Sterling has touched levels last seen in 1985. Visit London!! Impacts here will be negative; GDP will be clipped by two-tenths of a percentage point through mid/late 2017, bond…
Sales of new single-family homes in May were seasonally adjusted at 551,000, 6% below April’s level and 8.7% above the 5/15 level. More generally, only since April have new home sales exceeded 2008 levels and YTD sales are just 241,000,…
While the labor force participation rate has been declining, the declines are in households in the bottom third of the income distribution. The LFPR for men in the top two-thirds has been flat since 1980 while it’s fallen from 80%…
OPEC produces 32 million bbl/day of crude, slightly more than it produced 40 years ago. Then, that constituted half of global crude production, today it’s one-third. Moreover, the two largest producers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are currently unable to cooperate,…
Last Wednesday, the Fed kept short-term interest rates unchanged. But, the Fed’s communication was more dovish than expected, despite essentially unchanged economic forecasts of growth, inflation and unemployment, suggesting that the threats to the economy are to the downside. The…
The Friday File: Annual recreational visits to the 58 national parks totaled 75.3 million in 2015, surpassing the 1997 record of 69.5 million. On a per capita basis, however, visits have declined to 0.22 last year from 0.26 in 1995.…
Wealth of Americans hit a new high of $88.1 trillion in 16Q1, up from $87.2 trillion in 15Q4. The rise was driven primarily by an increase in residential real estate of $498 billion; equity prices declined $160 billion. Net worth…
Retail sales grew a healthy seasonally adjusted 0.5% in May, on the heels of a 1.3% surge in April. In addition, import prices in May rose by the most in two years and export prices rose by the most in…